An engaging and illuminating hybrid documentary that reflects a spectrum of autistic experiences, the deliberately intriguingly titled The Stimming Pool is co-created by a group autistic directors, known as the “Neurocultures Collective” (Sam Chown-Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles and Lucy Walker) along with artist-filmmaker Steven Eastwood, to offer up an artistic interpretation of what it is like to live with neurodivergence.
It allows the storytellers – as this film is as much about the importance of storytelling as it is examining neurodivergent life – to reflect their artistic endeavours through a meandering autistic camera, focussing on four initially separate threads that combine towards the end of the film. The film reflects a spectrum of autistic experiences, from safe spaces through to complex environments, as it tackles the chaos some people live within.
A young man, Robin Elliott-Knowles, draws a zombie comic strip, loves B-movies and runs his own film club at the Electric Palace Cinema in Hastings, introducing the screenings with his encouraging father near at hand. A woman (Sam Chown-Ahern) fills out questionnaires and goes through an eye-tracking test. An office-worker (performance artist Dre Spisto) with blue earphones struggles to deal with her work environment but once at home stretches and writhes, safe in her own environment. Meanwhile Lucy Walker (her face not seen) writes the story of a dog called Chess who feels “it is his duty to help all people with disabilities,” while she also dresses as a superhero-like dog person.
In a group session Sam Chown-Ahern’s explains the notion of the ‘Stimming Pool’ (a deliberately ambiguous and mysterious name), an empty swimming pool where a rave for autistic people can be staged.
According to official film notes: “Each character exists in an apparently separate world. Some are concealing being autistic and dealing with feelings of isolation, others thrive in the communities around them. But gradually we come to realise they have a shared objective: to find a place uninhibited by the tests and restrictions of normative society: this is the Stimming Pool.”
Towards the end of the film the themes and strands merge together, with animation helping tell the story of Robin’s American Civil War zombie tale, before heading into the stimming pool where people with earphones dance to their own music.
Attractively and compassionately shot on 16mm film by Aftersun cinematographer Gregory Oke, the varied stories weave cleverly in and out of each other, with the cast of autistic actors and non-actors offering a real insight into their lives and the realities of neurodivergence, with inclusion and visibility very much at the heart of the film as it aims to empower autistic artists, audiences, and communities.
UK, 2024, 70mins
Dir: The Neurocultures Collective (Benjamin Brown, Georgia Bradburn, Sam Chown Ahern, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker), Steven Eastwood
Production: Whalebone Films, Paradogs Films
Producers: Chloe White, Steven Eastwood
Cinematography: Gregory Oke
Editor: Sergio Vega Borrego
Music: Thomas Haines
With: Dre Spisto, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Sam Chown Ahern, Lucy Walker
